WHITE PLAINS—The New York Power Authority (NYPA) is partnering with Solar One, a New York City not-for-profit school outreach organization, and the New York City Department of Education (DOE) on a high school internship program that is giving four students from Bayside High School in Queens the opportunity of working with NYPA engineers for three months of on-the-job training.

Solar One arranged for the students to participate in its Green Careers Internship Program and to work closely with Power Authority engineers as they implement energy efficiency upgrades in public schools and other sites throughout New York City.

The internship program was made possible in large part through the assistance of a $250,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The funding is supporting 10 paid-internships for students at three participating New York City high schools, including Bayside, to work alongside professionals at NYPA, DOE Division of School Facilities, and two private energy service organizations, DomeTech and Viridian.

“The Green Careers Program is giving the participating students the opportunity to work closely with NYPA engineers, providing the young men and women with hands-on training and an edge in the engineering field should they choose to pursue permanent employment in the profession,” said Rino Trovato, energy services program manager, NYPA. “The two professional engineers that the students are working with are actually former NYPA interns who were able to transfer the knowledge they gained at the time into a long-term career with us.”

“If we equip our high school students with the right skills, and connect them to the enormous amount of work the city will do on its over 1,200 schools in the next decade to make them more energy efficient, it’ll be a powerful win-win,” said Chris Collins, executive director, Solar One. “Our schools will save money on their energy bills, and students will find work and start a green career. We are extremely grateful for the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of our very exciting pilot program, which aims to make this compelling new economic model a reality.”

“Congratulations to the students who were selected for this internship at NYPA,” said Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor, New York City Department of Education. “In the past 10 years, we have been committed to conserving energy and preserving our natural resources by using sustainable material in school construction and monitoring energy use in all our school buildings. I want to thank NYPA, Solar One and the Rockefeller Foundation for giving our students valuable work experience and helping prepare them for careers in sustainability.”

The three-month, 80-hour paid-internship began with the students’ completion of a 10-hour Occupational Safety and Health Administration training course administered by the School Construction Authority. In October, they began their internship and work with NYPA engineers on a variety of energy efficiency improvements that the Power Authority currently has underway in New York City. They include initiatives in various stages of development at five different schools that are expected to save city taxpayers more than $300,000 annually and remove nearly 970 tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere every year.

“We are very grateful to Solar One, the Department of Education, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Power Authority for coming together to make this great program possible,” said Venoid Kublall, energy auditing and management teacher at Bayside High School. “This is an incredible opportunity for our students to get hands-on work experience, better preparing them for a future career.”

In addition to participating in energy-saving initiatives at New York City public schools, the Green Career Internship students at NYPA have also visited the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx, where the Power Authority is nearing completion of a $2.7 million solar domestic hot water project that will provide more than $200,000 a year in savings and eliminate 366 tons of greenhouse gases annually.

The project will harness solar energy to provide domestic hot water to the Maritime dormitories and allow for the central boiler plant to be shut down during the summer months. When completed at the end of this year, the project will reduce the carbon footprint of the college and serve as a teaching and training tool for the enrolled students.

NYPA and its governmental customers in New York City, including the City of New York, have partnered on a wide range of clean energy projects that include high efficiency lighting upgrades, improved ventilation, boiler replacements, and a variety of other measures. Since the late 1980s, NYPA has partnered with its New York City customers on 1,327 projects at 2,419 facilities throughout the five burrows, saving taxpayers more than $89 million annually and removing more than 533,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere every year.

About NYPA:

■The New York Power Authority uses no tax money or state credit. It finances its operations through the sale of bonds and revenues earned in large part through sales of electricity.
■NYPA is a leader in promoting energy efficiency, new energy technologies and electric transportation initiatives.■It is the nation's largest state public power organization, with 17 generating facilities in various parts of New York State and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines.
■Approximately 80 percent of the electricity it produces is clean renewable hydropower. Its lower-cost power production and electricity purchases support hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the state.■For more information, www.nypa.gov